


The Empire of Lights

by saretton



Series: Ineffable Husbands Week 2019 [6]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Art, Body Worship, Established Relationship, Fireflies, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Ineffable Husbands Week 2019, Ineffable Week, M/M, Making Love, Outdoor Sex, Rene Magritte, Surrealism, the empire of lights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 16:09:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20763179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saretton/pseuds/saretton
Summary: “I wonder”, Crowley said, lazily browsing the art book, “what you think about yesterday’s exhibition.”-----In which, browsing a Renée Magritte art book, Crowley has an idea with which to surprise his husband.





	The Empire of Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Ineffable Husbands Week  
Day 6: 14 September, 2019  
Theme: inspired by art history or a piece of fanart  
My choice: Renée Magritte

“I wonder”, Crowley told Aziraphale, lazily browsing the art book, “what you think about yesterday’s exhibition.”

It was a hot summer afternoon in the South Downs and the two of them had just come back from a weekend in London, where they had made some shopping for Crowley’s plants and Aziraphale’s pantry. They had taken the chance to visit an art gallery downtown which hosted a René Magritte exhibition, choosing to dine at the Ritz (“Just like those good old days, when we used to live here in town”) and spending a very pleasant night at the theatre.

Crowley was now examining the book they’d bought at the souvenir shop of the art gallery. It was pleasant and weird at the same time. It contained a nice selection of the artist’s works, including some of the lesser known ones. As far as Crowley was concerned, those were perhaps the most beautiful. Since Aziraphale didn’t answer, he tried to encourage the conversation adding, “You’ve been unusually quiet about it, angel, since we went back home.” He flipped another page. “If I have to be honest, I enjoyed it very much. We've seen a lot of weird stuff over the centuries, but this human was at a whole other level, if you ask me. He was a visionary – I like that. And he had talent to spare. We could get inspired by the stuff he painted, you know, and do weird miracles like these.” He stared in awe at the painting printed on that page, _The Land of Miracles_. The outline of the potted plant was looking at him, peaceful and ethereal, mysterious and alluring, like an eye with an iris of lavender and light blue, its pupil a crescent moon. Just by looking at it, he felt calm, quiet and relaxed.

“Yes, I’ve been thinking about it”, Aziraphale said from the kitchen, where he’d been washing the dishes after lunch. Crowley had always found it endearing, how much his angel insisted on doing everything ‘the human way’, using his heavenly powers only when it was really necessary. “Impressive, to say the least. It gave me a lot to ponder on.”

“Such as?” Crowley smiled as he turned another page. He suddenly felt vaguely scared and disturbed at the sight of _The Son of Man_. After a couple of seconds, he realized that the thing which disturbed him the most in the painting was _not_ the hovering apple. On the contrary, it was the fact that the man had a misplaced elbow, as if it had been turned and snapped inside out like a toothpick, although it was too small a detail to be noticed from a quick glance. _Brilliant and unsettling_, he thought. _You just don’t notice some things at a first glance_.

“Us”, Aziraphale simply said, answering his question. A curt and enigmatic word.

Crowley heard him put away glasses and dishes on the rack. Now that he’d closed the tap, a minute of silence slithered in the cottage. The demon tried to make sense of that answer, but he still hadn’t been able to come to a conclusion when Aziraphale joined him on the sofa, folding his legs under his soft thighs and wriggling his toes in satisfaction. He was in suspenders and shirt, its sleeves rolled up, the waistcoat and jacket discarded who-knew-where. “You see”, he started, taking the art book form his hands, “Magritte was a surrealist painter and he liked to confuse the audience by subverting their expectations. Look here”, he said, pointing at _The Collective Invention_. “A mermaid. Half fish, half woman. It’s always assumed that the lower part of a mermaid will be a fish tail and the upper part a woman’s body; here it’s the contrary.”

“I see.” Crowley couldn’t deny that he felt a little repulsed by that. Sometimes humans had too much imagination, even for his own standards.

Aziraphale guided him through a couple of other absurd paintings in the book, like _Not to Be Reproduced_ and _Time Transfixed_, apparently to better emphasize his point.

As much as Crowley was willing to hear Aziraphale talk for hours, what really interested him was to know his conclusion. “It’s all very nice, but we already visited the art gallery yesterday. Just… what does this have to do with us?”

“I was getting to it”, Aziraphale said with a tight-lipped laugh. “It’s the _contrast_. We’re not very much alike, you and I. Physically and spiritually. You’re a demon, I am an angel… I’ve said this countless times already.”

Crowley smiled and nodded, but didn’t answer, and let Aziraphale go on freely.

“As you have certainly noticed, though, Magritte was capable also of melancholic, dream-like visions, not only ghastly or creepy ones. Look at this. _Nostalgia_”, he read the title of a painting on a different page. The picture showed a dark-winged angel dressed in a tux, leaning on a white bridge, and a placid lion sprawled nearby. The two were facing opposite directions, apparently unaware of each other.

Crowley looked at the composition for half a minute, taking in every detail. As he caressed the page, he thought that it was indeed a painting worth of its sad title. “It reminds me of us,” he said finally, “you know, when we didn’t talk to each other, a couple of centuries ago. I’m this moron here”, he pointed at the dark-winged angel, “and you are this proud beast here”, and he did the same for the lion.

Aziraphale laughed with that particular laugh of his, which sounded like a bell. “Yes!” He snaked an arm around his shoulders, pulled him closer. Crowley could tell he was excited, just like he would have been if they had been flipping through their wedding album (for the hundredth time already). “But look! This is even better, don’t you think?” Aziraphale flipped four or five pages until he found what he wanted to show Crowley. _The Empire of Lights_ – a series of paintings, all with the same subject. And indeed, they were all simply beautiful. “You see? Light and darkness, together, co-existing peacefully… Enhancing each other’s best traits, embracing the worst ones in loving acceptance… Don’t you think?” The angel breathed out, his eyes twinkling like a pair of light blue supernovae.

Crowley looked at his husband’s happy face and couldn’t help smiling in return. His angel was in one of his overjoyed moods. After millennia of practice and observation, Crowley could tell that just by the way he wiggled in place, like a peach-flavoured jelly.

Aziraphale went on talking in sheer delight. “I was thinking, maybe we could buy a copy of this and… I don’t know… hang it over the mantelpiece. Mmh? What do you think, love? Imagine it in winter, when we light a fire…”

Crowley turned his gaze again to the art book, eyeing one of the paintings which, somehow, looked a little familiar. Suddenly, everything clicked into place inside his mind. He came up with something, a _very specific_ something.

He pressed a kiss to Aziraphale’s temple, already anticipating his husband’s face when he’d see what he was plotting. “You’ve given me an idea. The _best_ idea. I hope you’ll like it. Come.” And, ignoring Aziraphale’s slightly confused face, he gently took his hand.

\-----

“Crowley, why did you turn on the lights upstairs before going out?” Aziraphale asked in confusion, while his husband closed the front door. The heat was almost unbearable for any human corporation, including his own, though to a smaller extent. At the very least, he knew that Crowley, being partly cold-blooded, was entirely comfortable and at ease. The soft clouds that the wind carried here and there, like cattle, provided only a temporary relief from the oven-like heat wave. “It’s hot out here. What is this all about? What are you scheming?”

“Hush. Questions not allowed. Just sit down here, if you please”, the demon gestured to the bench in front of the house across the pathway. It was placed beside a rock and it faced the meadows waving in the warm, southern wind, some lonely trees growing here and there and round, lovely hills.

Aziraphale obeyed and Crowley took his hand one more time. His face turned a little more serious. “Angel, you have to promise me you’ll try not to be afraid. Just trust me.”

With that, Aziraphale’s curiosity sparked up; as usual, Crowley knew exactly which buttons to push, one of them being his own thirst for knowledge. Aziraphale was an angel and there were very few things that could scare him. He wasn’t even sure that Crowley knew what they were, but he decided to trust him, as he’d always done and as he’d promised to always do. He nodded silently and very seriously.

Only then did Crowley let go of his hand. “Watch this.” He stepped away with a self-conscious and sheepish smile. Who knew what he’d been plotting in the last few minutes…

The demon snapped his fingers upwards and just declared solemnly, “Let there be darkness.”

It came. Seeping in like incense from the ground, pitch-black and doughy; small tendrils running everywhere like water and covering the earth. Everything around them turned black and navy blue, as if it were the middle of a starless night. The trees, the grass, the flowers, the bench next to the street in front of their house, facing the meadow… A velvet veil emerged from each little thing around them – the roof, the walls of the house, the cobbles of the pathway; the big rock in the middle of the grass, beside the bench; the lonesome, broken lamplight beside their house; the bushes scattered in the distance and swaying in the southern wind.

Aziraphale now understood why Crowley had warned him not to be scared. Total darkness was something he’d never experienced and that he considered to be one of his biggest fears. Not being able to find his way even if he tried was something that went too deeply against his angelic nature; it was something irrational for him, like a ghost to a human.

However, despite the first moment in which he’d felt taken aback, Aziraphale quickly realized that he was not afraid. He looked up, remembering that Crowley had left the light of their bedroom on – and there it was, orangey and warm, casting a faint shaft of light on the path below.

He smiled and, from the corner of his eye, he caught Crowley smiling in return. “Sorry, angel. Didn’t mean to frighten you, but… I’m glad to see you’re not afraid.”

“As long as there’s even the faintest light in the darkness, my beloved, I won’t be”, Aziraphale nodded to reassure him. “And besides, when I’m with you, I could never be afraid.”

Crowley winked. “You haven’t seen anything yet, though.” He fell silent and seemed to focus on something, closing his amber eyes. For some seconds, nothing seemed to happen. Soon, though, Aziraphale heard a faint buzz. He turned around, looking into the darkness, and saw tiny flashes of light coming closer and closer in the air, travelling from afar.

Aziraphale knew how much fireflies were dear to Crowley. The demon himself had told him that, when he was still an angel, he’d contributed to their creation. He felt that it was a pity to leave the stars hanging and twinkling in the sky, unreachable and far away, and that it would have been wonderful if humans could have something similar also on earth, to keep them company and make them feel less lonely during the night.

Usually there were no fireflies in England, so Crowley had practically summoned them there, in that unusual environment. Another one of his little demonic miracles…

The small swarm flew around the two of them to show their affection, without touching them but making them giggle. At a sign of Crowley’s hand, they moved away and landed in and around the broken lamplight, making it suddenly lit.

Aziraphale made a knowing smile. “I think I’m starting to see where you’re going with this little scheme of yours.”

“Do you?”, Crowley returned the smile and arched an eyebrow. “Then you are more than welcome to finish the job.”

Catching the hint, Aziraphale snapped his fingers downwards and said, “Let the sky be blue again”.

And so it happened. Darkness still lingered on the earth, enveloping everything around the two of them, with the fireflies in the lamplight and the lamp upstairs as the only sources of light; but looking up, now they could see a beautiful summer sky, like a light blue wallpaper with soft white clouds on it.

Still sitting on the bench, Aziraphale looked up and around, completely overwhelmed. “A perfect recreation of _The Empire of Lights_, my love. It’s amazing.”

Crowley sat down beside him on the bench, stroking one of his cheeks. His eyes were sparkling so much that Aziraphale thought he would go blind if he looked at them even one second longer, so he settled for turning his face around and pressing his lips against his palm.

“Those things you were saying on the sofa, about you and me, light and darkness…” Crowley fell silent for a moment. “It’s all true, I think. It’s us. It’s more than just coexistence, more than ‘one cannot be there without the other’… It’s making the other one stand out simply by being together. It’s so much that I don’t even know if I can put into words what I have in mind. You give light, I give shade. But shade can be cold, and light can be blinding. And yet, there’s need for both in equal measure.”

Aziraphale couldn’t stop kissing that thin, gentle hand. “To be perfectly frank, I think you are making yourself very clear, Crowley.” He looked into his eyes again. “I couldn’t have said it better. And this gift you’ve just given to me… It’s like living in a painting. It’s unbelievable and… it feels so unreal. Dreamy, even. Just like Magritte’s best works.”

Crowley put a finger in a ringlet of Aziraphale’s hair, stroking it with reverence. He was serious again. "If only I could return to you all the light you gift the world every day, angel, I would."

"You can. You always do, Crowley. Do it again", Aziraphale breathed, eyes locked with his. A sweet smile bloomed on his own lips, stretching like a crescent moon. "Show me."

Crowley exhaled and just took a dive, plunging into Aziraphale's essence, kissing him with rapture and being kissed in return.

For all those millennia, it had always been as if they’d been trying to catch a star that had always been there for them. As if it had been dangling in front of them for so many centuries, through volcano eruptions and icy blizzards, through famines and feasts. Now its light was stronger and closer than ever, in a dreamy, paradoxical place, so similar to the landscape in front of their house.

Aziraphale let himself fall and tugged his husband downwards with him, rearranging them both on the grass. The warm meadow welcomed them without making a sound. In the velveteen darkness of those stems, they could reach out to touch that star, encouraging each other all the while.

As he unbuttoned Aziraphale’s shirt, Crowley stopped quite often, taking his time. Aziraphale saw him admire how the light from the room above and the lamplight cast itself on his soft corporation. There were warm-coloured shadows embracing him, wrapping him up like a gold and brown sheet, a constant light coming from those two separate points. At each button, the demon gaped in awe as if he were discovering it all for the first time, lavishing every little curve with gentle breaths and a brush of his lips, only to be interrupted by the suspenders getting in the way now and again. Aziraphale felt joy climbing higher and higher inside him, and gladly let Crowley do as he pleased; Crowley finally took his shirt off, managing to leave the suspenders in place.

“Aziraphale, you are my light. Every day I look at you and I feel blessed, I feel forgiven, even though I don’t need forgiveness anymore. You’re my guiding star, the one that I have always been dreaming of. And I’ll be twice as damned should anybody, myself included, think you are less than perfect.”

Their remaining clothes were discarded and scattered everywhere on the dark grass, until nothing remained but skin on skin, slow breaths clinging to each other like chain rings in that unusual place between day and night. Long auburn locks caressed soft cheeks, causing a trail of goosebumps on the rest of their bodies. Aziraphale reached up blindly to pull that hair very carefully, burying his hand among its roots. Slowly, slowly, ever so slowly.

Like the two halves of the moon, they were joined together. The bright, smiling side and the dark, warm one. A single, silent celestial body full of dreams and mystery and hope. There was no rush. The sky and the darkness and the nature acted as a shield to them, and they continued to weave a thick and slow tension, like a thread of wool on a spinning wheel.

A single firefly flew out of the lamplight and gingerly landed on one of Aziraphale's collarbones, making him giggle softly. Crowley, who in the midst of their lovemaking had been nuzzling the angel's neck, unwillingly scooped it up on the tip of his nose, where it blinked a couple of times before flying onto one of Crowley's eyebrows.

"I see your little friends have come to say hello", Aziraphale commented with a huge smile on his face. His hand trailed up to cup Crowley's nape, gently stroking it, as another little firefly landed on one of his fingers.

Crowley laughed, plainly a little embarrassed at the intrusion but also somewhat proud. "They don't see me often enough, poor things. But they can be discreet, when I ask to." He lifted his head and talked a little louder but keeping a quite tone. "Andromeda, Perseus, please give us some privacy, will you? Go join your siblings. I promise we’ll chat later."

The two fireflies took flight, zooming in circles. They made a small stop on Crowley's hair and blinked as if to say goodbye, then they flew away and into the lamplight again.

Aziraphale put both of his arms around Crowley’s neck, tugging him down again, closer. As the demon built back the pace together with him, Aziraphale said between a breath and another, “Do you know what Magritte once said about _The Empire of Lights_?”

Crowley shook his head, managing to open his eyes to look at him. “What?”

“He said,” the angel whispered, keeping his thoughts together as best as he could, “‘I find that the simultaneity of day and night has the power to amaze and to charm; I call this power poetry’.”

Crowley blinked, smiling softly. “I think… we _are_ gonna hang that painting on the mantelpiece, after all. Aren't we?” And while he was at it, he bent down to nibble tenderly at Aziraphale’s neck and earlobe.

The dangling star was there in the middle, patiently waiting, between day and night. Together, loving each other in the dark meadow under a light blue sky, an angel and a demon held on tight and continued their journey to reach it.

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! There it is. Hope you like it!
> 
> I love Magritte, and The Empire of Lights is my favourite painting(s) of his. Enough said.  
For now I don't have much more to say about this. Anyway, if it comes to my mind, I'll add it here.
> 
> Come say hello on [Tumblr](https://saretton.tumblr.com/). :)


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